La. police pension fund eyes roast of Vt. coffee company

A Louisiana police employees’ pension fund is going after Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in court, alleging the Waterbury, Vt.-based company falsified financial records to cast a rosier picture of its performance—and that doing so cost investors billions of dollars. The Burlington Free Press reports the claim was levied in a class-action lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Burlington by the Louisiana Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System. The case alleges Green Mountain concocted an “elaborate scheme” involving “falsified financial documents,” charges the coffee roaster denies. The lawsuit could attract thousands of investors to sign on, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Burlington. The lawsuit states the Louisiana police retirement program purchased Green Mountain Coffee stock at “artificially inflated prices” from Feb. 2 to Nov. 9 on the strength of false and misleading statements made by the company and its officials, but the claim does not specify how many shares the pension fund holds. Green Mountain Coffee spokeswoman Suzanne DuLong says the company has done nothing wrong. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission launched an inquiry into accounting practices at Green Mountain Coffee in September 2010 that remains open; the company says it has cooperated fully in that investigation. Read the full story here. In November, the pension fund for Louisiana’s police sued J.P. Morgan, accusing several of its top executives of an alleged breach of fiduciary duty stemming from sanctions violations settled with U.S. authorities in August. You can read The Wall Street Journal coverage of that suit here.